


It's a wonderful Ray

by dsa_archivist



Category: due South
Genre: Humor, M/M, Romance, Slash, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-02-04
Updated: 2000-02-04
Packaged: 2018-11-11 06:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11142600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsa_archivist/pseuds/dsa_archivist
Summary: Valentine's Day is hard when you're alone, even if you just think you are.





	It's a wonderful Ray

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Speranza, the archivist: this story was once archived at [Due South Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Due_South_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Due South Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/duesoutharchive).

 

 

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Standard Disclaimer. As tired as this old plot line is, it occurred to me that no one had tried it. I promise no song lyrics were used, but hey, where's Tom Jones when you need him? Please send comments, questions, compliments, and otters to.

My sweet beta reader came up with the title. I didn't even think of the movie 'It's A Wonderful Life' when I was writing this story. I am making no comment about the Friendship Village in Schaumburg, IL. I simply liked the name.And, of course, extra special thanks go to Mary Healy, for breaking my writer's block thereby causing the rest of the story.

\--Please have your insulin injection ready.

# It's a wonderful Ray

"Happy Valentine's Day, Ray." He raised his champagne glass and toasted himself. "Another year gone by, still the same, old, tired fool as you've always been." He swallowed the drink and poured another one, watching the bubbles float to the top. "Even Ma's got a date. With my boss! Me? I sit here, on the first Valentine's Day of the millennium . . . No wait, of the century, alone. What an idiot."

The clock began to chime as he continued. "It wouldn't even matter if I wasn't here. Everyone would be perfectly happy if I'd never been born!" Just as he finished the twelfth strike of the clock sounded. Finishing the second glass of champagne, he went upstairs. He had to work the next day.

Waking up, he began his normal morning routine without noticing anything different until he opened the closet to get dressed and noticed he was in a guest bedroom. "Must have gone to the wrong room last night," he thought. "Strange." 

He had no idea how strange indeed, but he was about to find out.

He walked into the hallway and realized that the entire house had changed.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked in shock.

"You got your wish," a familiar voice answered him calmly.

He spun around. "Louis? You're-- you're alive."

"Not quite."

"What's going on?"

"This? This is your wish. The world, without you."

I'm dreaming. I have to be. Louis is dead. I'm dreaming. That's all there is to it.

"I know what you're thinking, Vecchio. You're thinking this is all a dream."

"Wow. You're psychic too. Who'd a thought?" he muttered sarcastically.

Louis laughed. "Whatever floats your boat, man."

"I don't exist? Okay, I'll bite. Let's see Irene's alive, you're not dead and best of all," his voice broke, "I didn't literally shoot my best friend in the back. Beyond that nothing much should change."

"Not quite. You've had much more of an effect than you think. Just follow me."

"Where we going?" I'm just going to play along, he told himself. If I'm dreaming, at least it will be more interesting that way.

"Out there." Louis pointed to the door. "Who would you like to see?"

"My family. Why aren't they here? In the house?"

"Without your income and support they had to sell the house when your father died."

"Oh." He was quiet as they walked down the street.

"Here we are." It was a slightly smaller house, Ray noticed.

"So they live here now? Looks nice, they did fine without me then."

"Oh no, only your sister Francesca lives here. With her husband."

"Frannie's married? Good for her." He could hear yelling inside the house.

_\--Lazy bitch. Clean that up!_ \--

"Hey, what's going on?" He pulled at the door uselessly. He looked at Louis. "Please, I need to see."

He found himself in the kitchen. Frannie was crying, cleaning up the broken pieces of a plateful of dinner. She had a black eye and her jaw was rapidly swelling.

_\--Stop yer bawling and fix me something to eat. Now! --_

Ray watched as he pulled her upright with a rough jerk. "Get your hands off my sister!" He tried to pull Frannie away from that monster but he couldn't touch her. "Let me help her." 

"You can't. Without you to stop Carmine and take most of the beatings, she lives with what she knows. She doesn't have the self-confidence a loving and protective older brother could have given her."

"What about Maria? Is she okay? Did she marry Tony?"

"Why don't we go see?"

The trip was longer this time, to a poorer section of town, to a small apartment. Again he found himself in the kitchen. There was Maria, pregnant and surrounded by at least a half dozen children of varying ages. "Are they all hers?"

"No, most of them are though. A few she takes care of for the neighbors. They need the money, you see. Tony can hardly hold a job and they have another child on the way."

"What about Ma? Doesn't she live with them?"

"Ah, no."

"Where is she?"

"Right there."

In his worry, he hadn't noticed the trip but he did notice an unusual odor. Above his head was a sign telling him where he wasthe newly renovated Zuko Friendship Village. Looking in the direction indicated he saw a frail elderly woman in a wheelchair. "Oh my God, Ma!" He knelt in front of the woman.

"She wouldn't know you even if she could see you."

Tears were trying to escape his eyes. "Let's go. I want to leave." He said abruptly.

"Where to?"

"Um, what about Fraser. Let's go to the Consulate."

"All right. The Consulate it is."

* * *

At the gate there was a Mountie he didn't recognize. "Where's Turnbull? I know I didn't affect his life."

"Actually, you did. Without you and Fraser distracting Inspector Thatcher she was on him day and night. Poor boy had no self-esteem. He had a nervous breakdown." They entered the building. 

'"What about the Dragon Lady?"

"She was transferred back to Ottawa, working under Henri Cloutier."

"I thought she took this job because of him."

"She did. She filed sexual harassment charges a year ago."

"That must have gone over well."

"As well as can be expected."

"Hey, so who's in charge of the Consulate? Benny right? Without me getting him in trouble, he must have moved up. Or did they let him go back to Canada?"

"Without your help, he never found his father's killers. After a year or so he grew frustrated. Then Victoria returned."

"Damn. Should have seen that one coming. Hey, I didn't shoot him right?"

"Without you to stop him from joining her and showing him what she was like, Victoria managed to frame him rather convincingly. She made her way with the diamonds and his career."

"So where is he?"

"Here." He opened his arms to encompass the view in front of him. Here turned out to be a cemetery.

"No! He can't be dead."

"Oh, he's not dead. Not physically at least. After prison this was the only job he could get. He lives over there."

There turned out to be a small shack made of wood, which looked to have the stability of the San Andreas Fault.

"Where's Dief?"

"With no license Diefenbaker was picked up by the pound. He was ordered destroyed."

"Oh my God!"

Fraser came out of the shack looking totally unlike the proud Mountie that Ray had known. His eyes bore the air of delicacy, as if the slightest further trauma would be too much. This was a man close to the breaking point.

"What happened to him?" He wanted to shake an explanation out of Louis, alive or not.

"Nobody's gotten close to him. Without you he lost Dief and has no support. He had no friends, leaving him an even easier mark for Victoria. That and jail have cracked his will to live. He's dying inside. Emotionally speaking. He just passing time now."

"No!" Ray couldn't take it anymore. He started to run. He ran from the horrid vision of Benny and his family and he ran from Louis but mostly he tried to run from himself. Exhausted and out of breath, he stopped to catch his breath. He found himself back in his neighborhood. Zuko's house.

"Zuko." He muttered the word under his breath like a curse or an affliction.

"No one else stood up to him, Ray. He controls the whole neighborhood."

He wasn't surprised to see Louis there. "But you're alive, right?"

"No Ray. I'm still dead. It was my fate, not your fault," he said simply. Ray hesitated, but Louis understood the question. "It was part of an operation. Jack tried to warn me but it was too late."

"And Irene? There's no way she was in the middle this time!" He was almost hysterical.

"I'm sorry Ray. She was killed in a plot by some of Zuko's men."

"Tell me they're in jail or dead!"

"Actually, yes. They are in jail."

"Finally. Something went right. Can we go to the station now? I need to see everybody. Is anybody dead? Huey, Welsh, Elaine? I'd rather know now."

"No, they're not dead."

"And they aren't criminals or anything, right? I mean, they were cops before I met them. Except for Elaine, of course."

"No felony convictions. Why don't we go look?"

* * *

He couldn't see any difference at the station. Desks were where they should be, he recognized a few faces, people going in and out, everything looked the same. It was late, but a police station always had people still working. 

"Okay, this is good. I can handle this."

"Huey, get in here!" Welsh was obviously his normal self. Ray calmly walked in behind Huey like he had every right to be there, just hoping for a reaction from either man.

"Yeah?" Huey's voice was low and quiet but barely contained the sarcasm and insubordination in the word.

Welsh didn't even flinch. "Got a new partner for you."

"Hell no!"

Again Ray was surprised to see Welsh allow that tone of voice for this long. "Dewey wasn't your fault. Neither was Kowalski."

Huey shook his head. "No way. I'm a jinx and you know it. No one wants to work with me anyway. I can't work with someone who can't trust me. I don't want to lose another partner. I won't . . . If I work alone, nobody gets hurt." 

"What's he talking about, Louis?" Ray turned to ask his conductor on this weird little cruise.

Louis was sympathetic. "He's on his way out. After I died, they partnered him with a Detective named Tom Dewey. He was killed. They replaced him with a man named Kowalski. Stanley Kowalski. He was also killed. Drowned." His spoke quietly. "Ever since then he has refused to work with anyone else. Brass doesn't like him because he keeps fighting Zuko. Zuko has a lot of friends in low places so he's officially hands off as far as cops are concerned. Between that and his bad luck losing all his partners, no one will work with him."

"I'm sorry."

"So am I. He was a good partner."

In their conversation they had missed the end of the argument. Huey stepped out of the office, looking rather unhappy. Welsh was staring into space. He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out an 8 x 10 photograph of an attractive woman that Ray recognized as his ex-wife. Welsh traced the frame with a fingertip before replacing the picture in the drawer. Ray and Louis followed him as he packed up his work and left the office, shutting the door behind himself before locking it.

They followed him home and watch him pour a glass of vodka and raise a toast. "To all my loved ones." He said bitterly, looking over a larger group of photos: his ex-wife, his brother, and his father. The first glass was swallowed without pause.

"Is he-?" 

"An alcoholic?" He continued as Ray nodded. "Yes. His wife asked for a divorce after rumors began that he and some of his men were crooked. IAD couldn't prove anything because it wasn't true but the rumors were enough. He never reconciled with his brother and father and he isn't dating even though he's been divorced for over a year. Basically, work is his life. He has no chance of further promotion so he's just waiting until he can retire with a full pension."

"What-I mean, why-um. Never mind. Can we go see Elaine now?" He'd dropped her off at her apartment once or twice, so he was shocked to find that they were headed in a different direction.

* * *

"Would you like fries with that?" Elaine asked the blond lady in front them.

"No, thank you kindly."

"Here you go."

"What the! Why is Elaine working at McDonald's?"

"Money. She didn't have enough confidence in herself to go through the academy and she doesn't make enough as a Civilian Aide to support her mother after her stroke."

"The blond woman looks familiar. Do I know her?"

"Look closer."

He stared at the woman and a dawning light shocked him. Take away some of the lines from her face and the hard, tired look from her eyes and she could almost be . . . "Maggie? Benny's sister?"

"They haven't met. She came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of her husband and when Tommy Ellis was murdered, she was convicted of it. Given the circumstances and her lack of a previous record, she got off lightly. Of course, prison time is hard on the innocent. She refuses to leave the city until she finds a way to convict the Torelli brothers of her husband's murder."

"Oh." What more could he say? He walked out of the door, intending to walk back to his house, where it had all begun.

"It won't help." 

"What do you mean 'it won't help'? I get it already, okay? I understand. I need to go back so everyone can be happy. This can't be permanent. They need me."

"You must listen to your heart. Go where the wrongness you feel began. Do what your heart tells you, not what you think you must. Follow your heart, not your head."

As Ray watched, open-mouthed, Louis faded out of sight. He walked up the steps to his front door, but he couldn't go in or through the door. Frustrated, he turned around and automatically got into the Riv parked in front. Starting the engine, he realized that the Riv hadn't been there until Louis disappeared.

He drove to the Hotel California, where things had begun feeling wrong the moment he had opened the door and unexpectedly seen his best friend standing there. Twenty-four floors he climbed, and he wasn't even winded. This time he was able to open the door. The room behind the door was dark, blocking any attempts to see what it looked like. 

* * *

The room around him was dark. He got out of bed and flipped the light switch, but it didn't work. He got dressed by memory and after checking the fusebox and resetting the circuit, he realized that he was in his house, with his things, and, listening carefully to Maria's muttering about Frannie taking too long in the bathroom, with his family.

He walked into the kitchen, kissed both his sisters and patted his brother-in-law on the back, prompting Tony to ask, "What's got you in such a good mood, Ray?"

He deflected answering by shrugging his shoulders. "Morning, Ma." He walked up and interrupted her cooking long enough to hug her. "I love you, Ma."

"Te amo, Caro."

Still smiling, he made it to the station without running a single stop sign. He waved to Elaine as she pulled out with her new partner and nodded to Dewey and Kowalski as they argued about some movie they had recently seen. He threw an arm around Huey's shoulder while asking him to get Welsh out of his office. The second he had, Ray rushed in. Closing the blinds, he pulled open the bottom drawer. Disappointed, he pulled out the picture of Welsh's ex-wife, only then noticing the thick layer of dust obscuring her smile. Satisfied, he put the picture back before adding a new picture to the crowded desk.

Welsh smiled as he walked into his office and noticed the picture of Rosa Vecchio that had magically appeared on his desk.

Ray had an extremely productive day, only slowing as the day drew to a close. His nervousness rose as it grew closer to his time to pick up his partner.

He watched carefully as Fraser stepped out from the Consulate, nodded at Turnbull who was standing guard, and looked over to the Riv as he began walking toward the car. Ray had never really looked at his best friend but now he noticed how Fraser relaxed, and smiled, as soon as he saw Ray. His posture, while still perfectly upright, was more relaxed, making him look taller than his normal hyperextended pose. During the drive to West Racine, he managed to hold up his end of the conversation, holding his rambling down as much as possible. He couldn't hide his smile at seeing Dief, much less Fraser, happy and healthy.

As tradition dictated, they ate, watched some TV, and walked Dief. With each passing minute, the previous night's experience faded from his memory, and Ray thought of more and more reasons not to risk his friendship, but then the inevitable happened.

Unconsciously he threw his arm around Fraser, and shivered, remembering, causing Fraser to ask if he was okay. And of course, he wasn't. He didn't even try to evade the question. "Can we talk?"

"Of course, Ray." Realizing that this was important, he sat down facing Ray.

"First, I want you to know that you're my best friend and you've changed my life."

The most beautiful smile spread across Fraser's face as he blushed deeply. Suddenly though, his face fell. "Ray, are you... I mean, is this... Are you sick or in some kind of trouble?"

"No, nothing like that, Benny."

Fraser let go of the breath he'd been holding. "I'm glad, Ray."

Ray didn't fight his return smile and his words came out automatically. "I love you, Benny."

He saw soft blue eyes widen at his words and basked in the shy smile directed at him. In a surprising gesture he felt Fraser holding his hand.

"Benny?" He murmured.

"Yes, Ray?"

"Don't let go."

"I won't Ray. I promise."

Ray felt Fraser tense momentarily and then relax. "I love you too, Ray."


End file.
